Turkey Leader, Cheney to Talk Detentions

JAMES C. HELICKE

Published 8:00 pm, Saturday, July 5, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Turkey's prime minister said Sunday he wanted to avert strains in ties with Washington over the detention of 11 Turkish soldiers by U.S. forces in northern Iraq, even as the Turkish press angrily denounced the United States.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to speak by phone later Sunday with Vice President Dick Cheney to discuss the seizure of the Turkish special forces troops. The detentions threaten to worsen ties between the longtime allies, already hurt by differences over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The 11 soldiers have been taken by the U.S. military in Baghdad, where they are still in custody, Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek said Sunday, repeating demands for their immediate release.

The U.S. military released some civilians detained along with the soldiers in the raid on the Turkish office in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Friday. The Americans were still holding 24 people from the raid _ including security guards and office staff. Aside from the 11 special forces soldiers, the nationalities of the other detainees were not known.

Erdogan had said Saturday that some of the soldiers were among those released, but he and Cicek confirmed Sunday that all 11 were still being held.

"We're in continuous contact" with the United States, Erdogan told reporters, saying Turkey was determined to bring the standoff to an end. "The positive atmosphere between the United States shouldn't be overshadowed by this."

Cicek said Turkey had told the United States that "this issue was in every way unacceptable and that the immediate release of our forces was suitable behavior for our friendship and alliance."

U.S. officials have remained silent about the reasons for the detentions _ in which Turkish officials say about 100 American troops raided the Sulaymaniyah office. The daily Hurriyet said the raid aimed to foil a Turkish plot to kill an unnamed senior Iraqi official in Kirkuk.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who discuss the detentions with Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday, has denied any such plot. Turkey closed down its border gate with Iraq _ a key transit point for U.N. aid to Iraq _ after the troops were detained.

Turkey has long had a military presence in parts of northern Iraq to fight autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels from Turkey who have set up bases there. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it also sent military advisers into northern Iraq to keep watch on Iraqi Kurds. Turkey fears that increasing Kurdish power in northern Iraq after Saddam's fall could fuel Kurd restlessness in Turkey.

Relations between Turkey and the United States have been severely strained since March, when Turkey refused to let 62,000 U.S. combat troops in for the Iraq war.

Turkey has been trying to repair relations with Washington, but the newest row appeared to be a serious blow to those efforts and has sparked outrage in Turkey.

The daily Milliyet printed pictures of blindfolded al-Qaida militants with their hands tied behind their backs Sunday. The newspaper said the U.S. military had detained the Turkish special forces in a similar fashion.

Hurriyet reported Sunday that Turkey had demanded an apology over the detentions from Washington and that Col. Bill Mayville, who it said was the brigade commander, be reprimanded over the incident.

Mayville was also reportedly in charge in April when the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade caught a dozen Turkish soldiers, dressed in civilian clothes and trailing an aid convoy.

U.S. forces suspected then that the Turkish team was sent in to inflame local ethnic Turkmen, who already have tense relations with the city's Kurds and Arabs.

Milliyet and Hurriyet said that several Turkmen offices were also raided over the weekend and that a Kurdish group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, had been involved in the raid on the Turkish special forces.

At the beginning of the war, Turkey repeatedly expressed concern that Iraqi Kurds might use the war to set up an independent state, a move it said would encourage Kurdish rebels who fought a 15-year war in southeastern Turkey. It also threatened to send in its own troops.